LEAGUE OF STORYTELLERS

The Sims: Nick Wayne needed work and got a tech job because it’s that easy

My sim needs work. Not sure if this is a black thing, but as soon as my life as a sim began, all I thought about was finding a job.

I talked to this girl around Lenox Mall earlier today. She was trying to get people to donate for a non-profit organization focused on helping orphaned and abandoned children in third-world countries. In a conversation unrelated to that last sentence, we discussed how most college students graduate from school paying off loans and don’t take a job in the field they studied.

It’s normal, but really, it shouldn’t be considered normal. We invest (and go in debt) in an education we don’t even directly use. This is unfortunately common regardless of race, but I feel the idea of “just get work” is particularly significant in black culture.

“Just get work” was the first piece of advice I was given by my grandmother (who practically managed and oversaw my education from elementary school to college). As soon as I graduated, my mission was to find a full-time job. Didn’t matter where it came from, just as long as it paid the bills. Encouraging me to chase dreams was never in the plan. That’s some shit I can do on the side.

And as my sim, Nick Wayne, stood in front of the house he was renting, having just purchased a computer, the first thing he thought of was to “just get work.”

Working in The Sims is light-years different from working in real life. For starters, there’s no interview process. You don’t have to type a resume. You don’t have to apply for a bunch of jobs. You decide what you want to do, tell the employer you want to do it, and you’re hired. No background check, no discussion of your qualifications, no pee test. It’s perfect!

This makes me wonder why any sim would want to do anything other than a job that pays a bunch of money? (Note: More on this two paragraphs from now.) Nick decided to get into the tech field with, to my knowledge, no technical education or programming skills. And yet, he was hired as a Live Support Agent on the spot. Even better, he’s getting paid 31 simoleons per hour, which I think of as $31 per hour, which is INSANITY!

My first real-life job paid me $15 per hour. This is nothing to sneeze at, mind you, but I had to jump through hoops just to get an entry-level job months after graduating. This n*gga (excuse my language, but no apologies given) is getting $31 an hour with NO skills or experience. This is like the greatest come-up in young, black history.

As for why sims wouldn’t just go for the highest paying jobs, The Sims puts a system in place to incentivize sims having jobs that are sensible for their happiness. The Sims stresses the idea of doing stuff we’re passionate about and fits our personalities and goals. This–this is amazing and idealistic. Sims become entertainers because they are charismatic and love people, or writers because they are creative and inspired, or CEOs because they love money.

Nick is a geek. An absolute dorkasaurus who also happens to be in great shape and socially charismatic. He’s everything I am in an alternate reality. Striving to be a tech guru makes sense, and everything he does on a daily basis falls in line with that. He plays video games, creates plugins, and reads for fun.

It makes all the sense in the world, but only like 27% of people in America adhere to this mode of thinking. (Note: I totally made up that percentage.) Our work and life cultures don’t allow for this. Rent is high, jobs aren’t easy to come by, and we got to survive as well as we can. So I walked out of school wanting to be a journalistic, and instead settled on being the everyday office worker.

All said I’m proud of Nick. I’m low-key envious because he’s my creation and already living a better life than me. But I like seeing other black people do well. This doesn’t mean I dislike seeing people of non-color do well. I just don’t particularly care or have any emotional investment in your success. Real talk. But this brother was thrown into small-town America in the fucking desert, doesn’t know how the fuck he got there and walked out with a job in less than an hour. That’s a good start.